breeches, silk stockings, and buckled shoes, with a
neckcloth, or scarf, of finely embroidered cambric, or figured
stuff, the ends hanging loose, the better to show the work, and
liberal bosom and wrist ruffles (the latter usually fastened with
gold or silver buckles), were usually considered a proper evening
dress for a gentleman of any pretension to fashion. The clergy and
many other gentlemen commonly wore black silk stockings, and others
contented themselves with gray woollen. The boots had a broad fold
of white leather turned over the top, with tassels dangling from
either side. The clergy frequently wore silk or stuff gowns and
powdered wigs. The ladies usually wore black silk or satin bonnets,
long-waisted and narrow-skirted dresses for the street, with long
tight sleeves, and in the house, sleeves reaching to the elbow,
finished with an immensely broad frill; high-heeled shoes, and
always, when in full dress, carried a profusely ornamented fan. The
excessively long waists, toward the close of this period, were
exchanged for extremely short ones; so short, that the belt or
waist was inhumanly contrived to come at the broadest part of the
chest. But no fashion of dress was so permanent as other customs
clinging to particular eras. Anciently, as now, fashions were
changed more or less extensively every ten years, though certain
broad characteristics remained long enough to give specific
character to the costuming of the eighteenth century."

The writer is accurate enough, no doubt, in her general description; but
what lady could give an entirely correct account of a gentleman's attire?
Knee-buckles, for instance, were almost necessarily small, instead of
"large"; it may be questioned whether top-boots were ever decorated with
tassels, a single article of that sort often hanging at the front of a
different kind of high boot, worn long after the beginning of the present
century; and as to the silk gowns of clergymen, it is but a very few
years since they began to be disused in the pulpit by Presbyterian and
Congregational ministers. About forty years before the present period,
many gentlemen wore dresses of the cut described by Mrs. Smith, though of
a more subdued color,--black, blue, or drab. Not long after the
beginning of the present century, a chief magistrate of Massachusetts,
Gov. Gore, made a sort of progress through the State, in imposing style.
His elegant, open ca